


You're a Question to the Universe

by Longdaysjourney



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28567992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Longdaysjourney/pseuds/Longdaysjourney
Summary: The man in front of him looks like Matt. He has the same aura of reined in strength, the same unconscious grace. But there is a predatory tilt to his smile and his hair, Foggy realizes belatedly, is a fiery red, like banked embers.“Foggy!” says not-Matt and, although its low, gravelly notes are deeply familiar, his voice is also wrong somehow, in ways that shift Foggy’s rapidly disappearing equilibrium. He catches himself taking a step back.“Matt?” Foggy asks, hesitant.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page, Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 35
Kudos: 90
Collections: DDE’s 2021 New Year’s Day Exchange





	1. Foggy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [94BottlesOfSnapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/gifts).



> This is a gift for 94BottlesofSnapple for the DDE 2021 New Year's Day Exchange. It's also super late - I'm sorry and thanks for your patience, 94Bottles!
> 
> 94Bottles had a couple of fun prompts - I used the song prompt (Wonder by Megan McCauley), the quote "Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get", Matt/Foggy shipping, and of course Murderdock, the Earth-65 version of Matt Murdock.
> 
> This is a bit of a departure for me - I usually do scene extensions and riffs off of existing Netflix series material. And I tried for a bit of plot - though less plot than I initially psyched myself up for. 
> 
> Lightning quick background: Murderdock was also trained by Stick, but when the latter was murdered, he was adopted and trained by the Hand. Returning to NY, he went to law school (where he roomed with Foggy). Under the auspices of the Hand, after graduation he worked for Fisk and eventually took over as the Kingpin. 
> 
> Hope this effort reads okay!

Foggy glances surreptitiously at his phone again – Matt was later than usual today. Fifteen minutes and counting.

It’s taken Foggy weeks to snag a reservation at the new Italian place down the street for what was meant to be a celebratory “we’re finally in the black” lunch. But in five minutes, the fidgety host – who had sneered with disdain when Foggy checked in and admitted reluctantly that no, his party was not quite all present – will give away their spot if Matt doesn’t show up. 

As he sidesteps a couple who nearly mow him down in their haste, Foggy hears a familiar tapping behind him. Sighing dramatically, he says, without turning around, “It’s about time, Murdock.” He pivots to face his chronically late partner, “You better have a good reason, I’m starv---“ 

And stops short.

The man in front of him looks like Matt. He has the same coiled strength thrumming just under the surface, the same unconscious grace. But there is a predatory tilt to his smile and his hair, Foggy realizes belatedly, is a fiery red, like banked embers. 

“Foggy!” says not-Matt and, although its low, gravelly notes are deeply familiar, his voice is also wrong somehow, in ways that shift Foggy’s rapidly disappearing equilibrium. He catches himself taking a step back.

“Matt?” Foggy asks, hesitant.

“The one and only.” Somehow, not-Matt’s smile grows wider, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. Shielded as those eyes are, however, by red-tinted glasses (slightly squarer and wider than his-Matt’s, Foggy notes distantly), he can’t be sure what they, or the fine lines at their corners, are doing.

Foggy takes an appraising sweep of their surroundings. No one seems to have noticed their conversation – and improbably enough, given that they’re a stone’s throw away from the office, there are no familiar faces in the Tuesday lunch crowd. He makes a sudden decision and steps smoothly forward, catching not-Matt by the elbow and leading him away from the restaurant and the thick knot of people at its entrance. 

“We’re going to my office,” Foggy whispers, the words sounding loud and panicked to his own ears. He tries not to think about what his heart is doing, or what it might be revealing. 

Not-Matt just tucks his red-tipped cane under his arm and follows Foggy’s lead without a word. 

A few steps later, Foggy is striding forward, not looking back to see whether the other man has continued to trail him or not. When the light turns green at the crosswalk, Foggy’s foot has just left the curb when he feels himself being yanked back, colliding into the solid wall that is not-Matt’s chest behind him. The whine of protesting brakes and the crunch of metal seconds later punctuates the relative calm.

He feels his face growing warm as he stammers out a thank you. 

Usually, when he’s with Matt, despite what he now understands about the latter’s radar sense, they fall back into their pre-Daredevil habits – Foggy leading his blind friend through the dangers of the urban jungle that is Hell’s Kitchen. It’s been a while since he’s let himself be so distracted that he nearly walked into traffic.

Not-Matt chuckles. “I can’t have my guide get flattened before I’m all set up; now, can I?” And Foggy is again struck by both the familiarity and the wrongness of that laugh. There’s some of Matt’s self-deprecating warmth in it, but also something calculating that is entirely missing from the guileless best friend he knows. 

The rest of their short walk flashes by and before Foggy realizes it, they’re standing in front of Nelson & Murdock’s crappy office door: the peeling white paint, the square pane of textured glass obscuring the desk – Karen’s – situated in what-passes-for-a-lobby on the other side.

Not-Matt’s cane handle suddenly appears over his shoulder and raps against the glass, breaking Foggy’s reverie. There are soft sounds of scuffling before the door swings open to reveal Matt, looking sheepish, mouth half-open to no doubt explain why he hadn’t shown up earlier at the restaurant. 

But whatever he was about to say dies unuttered. Instead, his dark head cocks to the side, listening. Abruptly, he pulls Foggy, who stumbles from the force of his tug, through the threshold and steps in front of him with a hand outstretched in a warding off gesture. 

In the kitchen, Karen, who’s been preparing a second pot of coffee, starts in surprise at the commotion – “What the hell, Matt?” She emerges to investigate, wiping her hands on her skirt. 

Matt’s panting lightly and he’s frowning, like he’s still trying to assess the situation and failing. His head tilts further and his hand hovers protectively in the space between them and the newcomer, as if to ward off an unwelcome apparition. “Foggy?” he says, uncertain.

Foggy’s vaguely aware of Karen making her way towards them before stopping short. “Holy shit….” She breathes before collecting herself and asking in a steadier voice, “What’s going on?” 

“What is it, Karen?” Matt’s voice is rough, urgent. Foggy can see the muscles shift almost imperceptibly under his navy suit. He's poised to fight - his stance more Daredevil than Matt Murdock in that moment.

Karen reaches out to Foggy, who’s still pressed behind Matt’s back. “I’m looking at a carbon copy of you.” She sounds stunned. “Well,” she amends, “almost a carbon copy. His hair is red and he’s a little taller and thinner.” Strands of Karen’s hair drag across Foggy’s shoulder as her mouth brushes against Matt’s ear. In a lower voice, she asks, “You can’t sense it?”

Matt’s head shakes out a curt, economical ‘no’. 

Karen pulls back, looking from Matt to the stranger, but directs her next words at the stranger – “Who are you?”

Not-Matt smiles, showing his teeth – “I’m Matt Murdock.”

***

They gather in Matt’s office once the initial shock has worn off and Matt has warily convinced himself that his doppleganger wasn’t about to attack. 

“So you work together?” asks not-Matt. He’s at ease, sitting back in the chair Karen brought in from Foggy’s office, his legs crossed at the ankles.

Now that Foggy’s looking at him more closely, he can see that he really doesn’t resemble Matt at all. Whereas Matt’s wearing his typical office uniform of a dark blue jacket and a crisp white shirt, his counterpart sports a tailored crimson suit over a pale lavender shirt – an unabashedly red tie knotted at the neck completes the look. 

In fact, Foggy can’t remember a time when Matt deviated from his dark suit or muted hoodies and sweats ensembles – not even back when they were students. 

Not-Matt carries himself with more assurance too. Sure, Matt performs remarkable feats of theatre – radiating confidence when facing an opponent in court or a recalcitrant witness on the opposing side. But to Foggy, Matt will always be the wounded handsome duck he encountered that first day in law school, the boy who stammers when he gets nervous, who’ll, in rare moments, allow himself to be overtaken with fits of unrestrained giddiness.

“You don’t work with your Foggy?” Matt asks, surprised. “Didn't you say you'd also roomed together at school?”

Not-Matt chuckles. “Well, yes, but our paths have diverged a bit since then.” He clears his throat and his expression softens for a moment. “He’s the DA and I’m in private practice.”

Foggy feels himself puffing up visibly – “A DA – really?” He knocks his shoulder against Matt’s, who’s so distracted that he puts his hand down on the edge of his desk to maintain his balance. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given up so easily going up against Tower.” Matt huffs in laughter, but the hand that rakes through his hair shakes slightly.

“So you said your watch sent you into our universe?” Trust Karen to get right to the point. Her arms are crossed and she’s looking at not-Matt with a mixture of wonder and dark suspicion. 

“Yes,” says not-Matt simply. “It belonged to an associate of mine. I didn’t realize its significance.” Angling his body so that he’s facing her, he bestows on her a dazzling smile. Resplendent with dimples. “And how do you fit into this happy little family?” He's not quite leering, Foggy decides, but it's close enough that he feels himself bristling in response.

“Oh, I’m just their office manager – ” Karen begins, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and shifting her weight to her other foot. 

“She’s a partner,” Matt clarifies, cutting Karen off and flashing her a warm smile. “And she helps chase down leads and works the research on many of our cases. She’s invaluable.” Foggy sees a slow flush creep across Karen’s cheeks. He doesn’t need to have Matt’s freaky lie-detector skills to know she’s still carrying a torch.

Ugh, carrying a torch – what is he, an escapee from a 40s rom-com? He’s wondering idly if Matt still feels the same pull towards Karen that he had before everything went to shit and trying not to examine too closely why he cares when he notices not-Matt regarding him with curiosity, that tilt of the head so familiar, the sightless stare nonetheless intense. 

The attention unnerves him. So he reacts the way he always does when he’s uncomfortable – he starts to babble. 

“Oh, Karen’s great,” Foggy agrees. “We never would have been able to take down Fisk without her.” 

His patter slows down a fraction when he thinks he sees not-Matt blanch at the mention of the crime lord. “Oh, do you have a Fisk in your world, too? I guess that’s not super-surprising, bad eggs tend to crop up pretty reliably. Though actually, I have no idea what rules govern parallel-, er multiple- – wait, is it ‘parallel-‘ or ‘multiple-‘ universes? Man, and here I thought paranormal ninjas and girlfriends coming back from the dead were weird. ” He pauses to take a breath, gesturing vaguely in Matt’s direction.

Matt takes advantage of the momentary silence. “Maybe we can have Stark look at that watch and see if he can help get you back to your world. We share an intern with him. I could probably have him pass along a message.”

“But to avoid awkward questions, it’s probably best if you stay at my place,” Matt continues, suddenly looking very tired. There’s a healing bruise, its edges yellowing, just visible beyond the right lens of his glasses and the stubble on his jaw is a hair past well-tended. 

Foggy frowns. He suspects Matt’s been pushing himself at night as much as he has been during the day – incapable of shutting out the calls for help, but trying to prove to his partners that he’s committed, the wounds from their firm’s dissolution too fresh. And while it hurts Foggy to think that there are still parts of himself that Matt finds necessary to squirrel away, that he believes are unpalatable; at the same time, he knows Matt’s trying, that he’s been trying ever since they erected their fragile détente on that windswept rooftop months ago. 

“Okay,” not-Matt says slowly, “I suppose that makes sense.” Foggy’s not sure if the reluctance he hears in his voice is real or imagined.


	2. Murderdock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy and Karen are at the door now. Matt’s washing his hands in the kitchen, pretending to give them space – even though they all know that he can sense every word, every breath, every parasympathetic response.  
> They’re hugging now. Page first, then Nelson – the latter holding on a beat too long. It’s shocking really, the amount of physical contact this Matt allows. 
> 
> Matt still remembers how overwhelming everything was right after the accident and then again after the death of his father. How the merest whisper would send him careening half-mad with pain or the way a well-meaning caress would set his nerves aflame and put him out of commission for hours.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stick around?” Karen asks doubtfully. 

They’re packing up leftovers from the takeout place around the corner: Thai, in waxed paper boxes, scattered on their host’s tiny dining table and the considerably larger coffee table. The lime and spices are pungent, the sour tang of liberal doses of vinegar and sugar, an assault on his senses, but Foggy had pronounced it the best Thai in the city and his friend had readily concurred – who is Matt to disagree? So he had picked delicately at his noodles and peanut dish with chopsticks and fought to tamp down the gorge rising in his throat. 

Karen’s question is directed at soft-Matt, as Matt has taken to calling this universe’s Matt Murdock in his head. 

“Yeah, I think it’s best for now,” soft-Matt says, unable to hide the unease in his voice. Matt thinks it’s adorable how he’s managed to convince himself that he’s being sly, making sure he was always between his friends and Matt; his senses attuned to Matt’s every shift and sigh, while neglecting the signals his own body’s broadcasting.

Foggy and Karen are at the door now. Matt’s washing his hands in the kitchen, pretending to give them space – even though they all know that he can sense every word, every breath, every parasympathetic response. 

They’re hugging now. Page first, then Nelson – the latter holding on a beat too long. It’s shocking really, the amount of physical contact this Matt allows. 

Matt still remembers how overwhelming everything was right after the accident and then again after the death of his father. How the merest whisper would send him careening half-mad with pain or the way a well-meaning caress would set his nerves aflame, putting him out of commission for hours. 

After training with the Hand, he’d finally managed to gain some semblance of control, learned to transform the hypersensitivity into a tool and a weapon, but touch was never something he sought out. 

“Be sure to call if you need anything, buddy,” Foggy’s voice is low, but to Matt, it’s as if he were standing right next to him. He doesn’t hear a response, but some kind of exchange must have occurred because a moment later Foggy’s saying, his tone fond, “I know that look, Murdock. This isn’t a puzzle you have to sort out on your own. We’re here, if you need us.” And then, nonsensically, “Long live the avocados!” before he’s being led away by a giggling Karen, the door closing softly behind them.

Soft-Matt pads back into the living room – he’d changed into a pair of thick woolen socks and a beaten up hoodie zipped all the way to his neck as soon as they had returned to his apartment. “Wanna beer?” he offers. Not waiting for an answer, he makes his way into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and pulls out two bottles – setting one down, slick with condensation, in front of Matt, who’s claimed the armchair a departing Karen had just abandoned. 

Improbably, the other man seems more relaxed than Matt has seen him all day. And then...it dawns on him – “Page and Nelson,” he breathes, “you were trying to get rid of them.” A tight smile is his only response as soft-Matt lowers himself onto the battered couch opposite him. 

Then, he leans forward, suddenly very keen. “When you showed up at our office today with Foggy, I couldn’t hear your heartbeat. Why?”

Foggy and Karen had gradually relaxed over the course of the evening, seduced by that reliable Murdock charm, but Matt would have to work harder to win over his double. 

He takes a small sip from the bottle, grimaces, sets it down again. Beer has never been his preferred poison. “I was trained by Stick,” Matt begins, referring to a conversation they had already had when they were all together, waiting for the food to arrive. “But after he died, the Hand trained me – for years.” He flicks a nonexistent speck of dust off his sleeve. “After that, I ended up back in New York, where I roomed with Foggy at ESU Law, turning over a new leaf.” It isn’t exactly a lie. 

A sharp intake of breath, as soft-Matt absorbs this new bit of information. Outwardly he appears calm, but his galloping heart gives him away, and his hands, resting on the tops of his thighs, clench and unclench. Matt knows how incriminating and problematic the Hand revelation is. The wait to see where it lands stretches between them. “And the Fisk in your world?” he asks finally.

“Never really a significant player,” Matt says smoothly. 

As if a string had been cut, the other man’s shoulders slump. He rises suddenly, swaying a little on his feet. The exhaustion he’d been keeping at bay earlier looks ready to overrun him.

Matt had noticed earlier Foggy’s over-solicitousness towards his friend. As much as soft-Matt seems to worry over Nelson and Page – Matt realizes, his heart spasming curiously at the thought – they are equally careful with him. If Matt had to guess, something big had gone down in the recent past (probably the take-down of Fisk that they alluded to, but also something more that no one’s willing to say) and his friends are still treading softly, their current bond – while not new – was fragile, friable. 

Soft-Matt is rubbing his face tiredly with one hand. “It’s been a long day. You can take my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

***

The screen door separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment is shut and Matt’s taking inventory of his surroundings – aware of course, that the owner of said surroundings is on the other side of the door, capable of tracking his every move. But Matt doesn’t think he’d begrudge him his curiosity. How often, after all, does one come across a near-identical copy of oneself?

So far he’s not impressed by his counterpart’s sartorial choices. He may be blind, but from what he can tell of the room’s orderly, sparse closet, the most exciting thing in there is an ugly Christmas sweater – he can make out felt antlers sprouting from the torso, the weave surprisingly soft for what must have been a gag gift. 

The rest of the hangers, each carefully marked with a descriptive tag in Braille, contain only more suits (jackets, shirts, and pants), and further back, shoved in the recesses, are hoodies, sweats, some jeans, maybe a parka.

While the rest of the room reflects its occupant’s circumstances (attorney at a struggling, upstart practice whose wallet can’t quite keep up with his tastes), the silk sheets that drape the bed rival anything Matt has in his own Central Park brownstone. With an appreciative sigh, he slides in and wills his racing mind to still. 

Today has provided a lot of grist to digest. 

As though through a glass darkly, he recognizes something of himself in this universe’s Matt. Was he ever, however, that much of an overgrown puppy – he thinks, distaste and wistfulness crowding for real estate inside him. 

But there was a time, wasn't there? Before the Hand, before the games – when he had chased meaning and purpose? Something steadfast against the currents that had always been there, dragging him under whenever his feet found purchase. His father's unshakeable faith that Matt was meant for something more, a friend with dreams to share.

“Cut friends loose, for their sake,” Stick’s voice travels across time and dimensions to burrow into Matt’s brain. “Break their hearts if you have to, just do it quick. Relationships are a luxury people like you and me can’t afford.”

Matt wonders if the iteration of Stick in this universe ever uttered those words to his charge; if he’d rebuffed clumsy overtures from a boy still grieving the death of his father. If so, they obviously didn’t take. The Foggy and Matt of this universe are clearly devoted to one another. 

Foggy… Here, Matt’s thoughts stutter and snag. Meeting Foggy today had thrown him. He had forgotten how light, how unbowed Foggy had been when they first met almost a decade ago – before the weight of too many compromises left him haunting and haunted. That flash of memory, it burns before Matt files it – very deliberately – away.

He’s so lost in his thoughts that he almost misses it – footsteps on the stairs leading to the roof. He waits a beat, then another, until the footsteps fade away, lost in the thundering drone of a city waking up for its second shift.

Now this is interesting. Masking his heartbeat, he follows.

*** 

A fucking vigilante. The Matt Murdock of this world would just have to be a fucking vigilante. 

Or, more currently accurate, an armful of vigilante dead-weight. Matt scowls and shifts the unconscious masked man so that he’s slung securely over his shoulder before picking his way carefully from rooftop to rooftop. 

He’d been content to observe from a distance, noting with a certain clinical detachment, the way the vigilante dispatched his opponents with brutal efficiency. He recognizes Stick’s training in the jabs and kicks and flips the other man executes with flawless skill, but there’s also an intimacy in the pummeling he metes out – a sharing of space, physical and mental – that Matt typically elides with the use of his katana. 

But from his vantage point, he noticed that as the fight dragged on, the other man’s reactions started to flag. First, it was a kick that he dodged a hair too late, which sent him tumbling to his knees. Next, another assailant managed to press the advantage, clipping him on the side before sinking a thin blade under his arm. Matt sensed the flash of steel as it arced down, but he was too far to intervene. He could only scramble to the scene in the immediate aftermath, to stave off additional damage by wreaking some of his own. 

By the time the last man foolish enough to try his luck against Matt had limped away, the masked man had lapsed into unconsciousness, a pool of blood spreading out beneath him. Matt hoisted him up, trying to ignore the growing wetness seeping through the thin shirt.

Matt’s strong, but it’s still a challenge to negotiate the last stretch between the open air and the relative safety of his host’s apartment. Halfway down the stairs, he stumbles, narrowly avoiding a disastrous plummet to the ground. Once the injured man is safely situated on the floor, a slight groan the only sound that’s escaped him for minutes, Matt beelines to the bathroom to retrieve the first aid kit he had earlier taken stock of.

A quick assessment assures him that nothing vital has been punctured, but Matt knows he needs to get the bleeding under control. And quickly. Already, he detects the minute drop in temperature that tells him shock is imminent unless he can stem the tide of blood. His hands are slippery with it, but he manages to open the small metal box, its hinges squeaking in protest. 

The kit’s contents are woefully inadequate. But he finds a packet of sterilized needles, threads one and sets to work repairing the wound, including suturing a nicked vessel – the source of the bleed. 

Afterwards, adrenaline spent, he rests his head against propped knees. For a long time, the steady rise and fall of the other Matt’s chest is the only detectable movement in the apartment. 

When the lock mechanism of the front door engages and the fluorescent bulb hums to life, Matt doesn’t react immediately. He doesn’t react when the newcomer crashes to his knees by his unconscious friend, or when his heartrate ticks up after repeated, failed attempts to elicit a response.

“He’s fine,” Matt says quietly from his spot on the floor. “I think he’s more exhausted than anything.” If Foggy's surprised to hear Matt's voice, he doesn't give any indication of it. Instead, he's quiet - the air between them charged and heavy. Matt can feel Foggy’s stare, sense the moment he registers the blood, caked and dried now, on his clothes. When Foggy turns back to his friend, he removes the black strip of cloth from his face, gentle fingers smoothing back rumpled hair.

A moment passes, while Foggy gathers his thoughts. Finally - “What happened?” he asks, his voice controlled and level.

“He snuck out. I followed him. When he got in over his head, I helped.” The words are clipped, the effort to explain strips them of their usual bravado, but he wills Foggy to understand. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t know.”

Matt’s answer seems to deflate whatever had been building up. Foggy slumps a bit and scrubs a hand tiredly over his face. “This is just a little too familiar.” He sighs and Matt imagines he's remembering the weight of many such nights, when he's had to keep the pieces of his friend together through will, luck, or some combination of the two. “I came back because Matt seemed wound up a little tight tonight, even for him. I wanted to make sure that he was…that you both were okay.” 

Something fragile takes root in Matt. Something long buried, but miraculously dislodged by this sideways jaunt, this illicit peek into a Matt-adjacent’s life. A vise he hadn't realized existed loosens. 

He feels suddenly magnanimous. “Look, Fogs,” Matt says gently, stumbling a little over the long-unused nickname. “I’m a bad guy. The worst. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that you should let your Matt know how you feel.” 

Foggy’s starts in surprise, he's making noises of feeble protest, but Matt continues as if he doesn’t notice, “And for the record, he feels the same.” 

He laughs, the sound a little hollow, and waves off Foggy’s denials and excuses. Suddenly, he has no patience for either. “Matt might be a walking lie detector, but he’s astonishingly bad at hiding his own emotions. He’s an open book. And then some.”


	3. Foggy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short one to wrap things up from Foggy's perspective.

“Fogs?” Matt, Foggy’s Matt, stirs and struggles to sit up. Relieved, Foggy helps prop him up against the edge of the couch, wincing as the movement sets off a brief bout of coughing. 

When it passes, Foggy asks, “Did you happen to hear any of that?”

Matt looks adorably confused, beneath the layer of blood matting his hair and drying on his temple. Foggy cradles Matt’s face, its angles and planes so familiar and so dear. When Matt leans into his touch, Foggy feels an accompanying rush of blood flood his skin. 

With a hammering heart, Foggy touches his lips delicately to Matt’s. The kiss is restrained, but scaffolded by ten years of longing, it leaves them both gasping. When they break for air, Matt asks, wonder in his voice, “What prompted that?”

Foggy spins around to locate not-Matt, but the room is empty. “Where…” he trails off. 

Matt listens for a moment, forehead creased in concentration, then shakes his head. “There’s no one else here, Fogs.”


End file.
